The present invention relates to resource allocation in a mobile telephone system and more particularly to a method of efficiently allocating processor time in the mobile services center or base station of a mobile radiotelephone system.
Because of the mobility of transceivers in a mobile radiotelephone system, the transmission quality of calls in progress is continually varying, as with increased distance, changes in terrain, etc. In order to ensure adequate transmission quality and ultimate satisfaction of the subscriber, it is necessary to continually monitor the transmission quality of calls in progress, switching calls from one channel to another if transmission quality would thereby be improved.
Another factor affecting transmission quality is the transmission power of the various mobile stations. Transmission power is set at the mobile stations in response to commands relayed through the base station from the mobile services center or possibly originating at the base station. The power must be set at such a level as to ensure a clear signal but at the same time avoid undue interference with transmissions of other mobile stations.
The job of call monitoring to ensure high quality service is performed by the processor of the mobile services center or the base station and becomes very time consuming, especially at peak load hours when a multitude of calls are simultaneously in progress. Because of the great demands placed upon the processor's time by the call-monitoring function, it may not be feasible to realize other desirable functions and subscriber services without exceeding the processor's capacity. Using the present invention, the time demands of the call-monitoring function can be reduced such that additional processing time is then freed up to implement other desirable processing functions.
Another advantage of the present invention may be described as "optimal performance at overload peaks". Although the aim of system design always is to dimension the system in such a way that overload peaks during busy hours are avoided, almost inevitably there will sometimes be overload situations, since traffic is stochastic. In mobile telephony, the demands on software have increased more rapidly than hardware has been developed with the result that overload situations seem to be more and more frequent. Without the benefit of the present invention, all connections are caused to suffer equally from the lack of CPU power during an overload situation. Using the invention, overloads disturb the overall radio supervision performance to a much lesser extent.